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I Like The Ritual Of Putting On My Makeup, Putting On My Costume, Doing My Warm-ups. I Eat The Same Dinner Every Night Before I Go On Stage. I Like Having Something That I Can Count On, Something That Feels Stabilizing For Me.

-Sarah Paulson

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I Like The Ritual

Sarah Paulson

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I Like The Ritual Of Putting On My Makeup, Putting On My Costume, Doing My Warm-ups. I Eat The Same Dinner Every Night Before I Go On Stage. I Like Having Something That I Can Count On, Something That Feels Stabilizing For Me.

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Nobody Could Ever Say As Many Terrible Things To Me As I Say To Myself.

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No, I'm Not A Republican Working In Hollywood, I Am A Democrat.

I'm Sporting Some Really Blonde Hair Because I Live In Hollywood And I'm An Actress.

To Me, Most Of Life Kind Of Lives In The Grey And I Don't Just Mean Morally. I Just Mean Kind Of Everything. If Things Were Black And White It Would Be A Lot Clearer As To What To Do All The Time.

Black And White

I Think It's Very Important For People To Not Judge The People You're Playing. You Have To Find A Way To Love Them Because Their Story Is Theirs. I Just Don't Think There Would Be Any Use In That.

When I Look At My Career, The Bulk Of It Has Been Television, And I Love Working In Television. But There's A Speed At Which You Do It. You're Doing Seven To Ten Pages A Day On A Series, And It's Hard To Feel Like You're Doing The Detail-oriented Work That I Like To Do.

I'd Love To Be In The '70s. I'd Love To Have A Big, Long Wig Parted Down The Middle With Flat-ironed Hair And Bell-bottoms. They're Actually Very Flattering For My Figure. The Wider The Leg, The Better For A Person With A Booty.

There Are Rules, And When Certain Things Happen, There Are Ceratin Consequences.

If You Get On A Tv Show That's Successful, Odds Are That You're Playing The Same Character For As Many Years As The Show Is Running, Which Can Be Its Own Blessing, But It Can Also Be A Curse Because You're Playing The Same Thing And That Can Be Tiresome.

I Have Friends Say, "don't You Want To Have A Little You?" The Jury's Still Out On That For Me. I Don't Have A Definitive Answer, But I Do Know That I Can Look Back On Some Of The Things I've Worked On And Some Of The Things That Have Literally Come Out Of My Imagination And Be Just As Proud Of It As If I Had Created A Person. I Feel Like That Shouldn't Be Of Any Less Value. It Can't Be Because It's What My Life Is, And I Don't Want To Make It Smaller Or More Palatable Just Because Society Tells You To. If You Can Get Comfortable With Sacrifice, Then You Are Having It All.

I Was A Victim Of What Most People Are A Victim Of, Which Is Really, Really Just Gulping Down What Was Being Fed To Me By The Media.

I Could Never Have Thought, "i Wanna Play A Two-headed Woman." That Just Never Would Have Occurred To Me, In A Million Years.

I'm Interested In Telling The Character's Story, Not My Beliefs, Political Or Otherwise.

I Will Do Plays As Long As They're Interested In Having Me Do Them. It's The Biggest Opportunity To Learn The Most About How To Act. Something I Discover Every Time I'm Doing One Is How Little I Know About Acting - How Important The Art Of Listening Is, And How Important It Is To Listen With Your Entire Body. You Can Tell So Much Of A Story With Stillness, And A Lot Of That Can Be From Really Actively Listening To Your Scene Partner.

I've Always Really Made My Living In Television. Television Has Always Been So Good To Me.

I Usually Feel Like The Role Comes To You To Sort Of Illuminate Some Piece Of Where You Are In Your Life. I Feel Like I Myself Am A Single Woman And I'm Childless - By Choice - At This Point, And I Don't Know What Will Happen.

I Could Feel My Body Temperature - I Knew I Was Bright Red. It Was So Humiliating, I Was So Upset, And It Was Nothing I Had Planned To Do. It Was Just One Of Those Beautiful Moments, The Alchemy Of Acting That Is So Mysterious, Where You Sort Of Go, "how Did That Come Out Of Me?"

It's Ok To Sit In The Golden Globe Room And Look Around And Think, 'oh, Helen Mirren's A Loser Tonight, So Is Nicole Kidman. Meryl Streep Lost Tonight. Jessica Lange Didn't Win.' If You're Gonna Be In The Company Of Losers, That's The Company To Be In.

I've Never Been On A Show That's Run For More Than A Season.

I Remember Feeling The Temperature Change The First Time The Curtain Came Up, The Difference Between The Audience Temperature And The Stage Temperature. I'll Never Forget It.

I Don't Have Children, But My Work Life Is As Important To Me As Anything Could Be. I've Dedicated A Lot Of Time And Energy And Years To It. Some Might Say Some Of My Childbearing Years To It. In And Of Itself, My Work Is Like A Child To Me. That Is My Reality.

I've Only Been To One Concert In My Life.

I Like The Ritual Of Putting On My Makeup, Putting On My Costume, Doing My Warm-ups. I Eat The Same Dinner Every Night Before I Go On Stage. I Like Having Something That I Can Count On, Something That Feels Stabilizing For Me.

I Like That Feeling In Your Brain When You've Got Seven Things That You're Holding In One Moment-you Heard That Person Cough, You Heard That Person Laugh, You're Also Saying Your Line, You're Also Listening To The Person Who's Talking To You.

The Thing I Worry About For Myself Is I Spend A Lot Of Time Alone, And Another Person Comes Around And You're Like, 'what Are You Doing Here? Get Out Of Here.

Sometimes I Think On Television, You Use Maybe A Tenth Of What You Are Able To Do. So It’s Nice To Go, Well, I’m Gonna Take Two Months And Reinvest In Acting And Storytelling. You Don’t Get To Do That On Television.

My Great Love Is The Stage Because I Do Feel Like It's The Place Where, If You're Lucky And Everything Is Firing In The Right Way, You Have The Greatest Shot At Being Successful. I Don't Mean By Getting Great Reviews, But I Mean By Finding The Core Fo The Person That You're Playing.

The Theater Commitment Is Hard, Especially In Conjunction With A Television Commitment. That's A Big, Long Commitment.

All My Friends Went To The Madonna Concert When I Was In, Maybe, The 9th Grade, And My Mother Refused To Let Me Go.

Acting Is Doing. The More You Do, The More You Learn. Work Begets Work.

I Learned, Having Played Marcia Clark, What The Value Of That Is In Your Life Because It Can Affect Everything, Every Choice You Make, The Way You Deal With A Stranger On The Street, Or Your Best Friend Or Lover. It's A Powerful Thing To Know Yourself And To Have The Commitment And The Courage To Let That Be Your Guide.

When I Have Brown Hair I Feel The Most Like Myself, But I Don't Feel Glamorous. It's A Disgusting Thing To Admit.

I Am A Person Who Is Not Mated.

Playing Sally Mckenna Was A Wonderful, Freeing Thing Because We All In Life Have So Many Responsibilities To Ourselves, To Other People, That We Rarely Get To Explore A Very Selfish Side Of Ourselves In Doing What We Want, When We Want, How We Want, Without Answering To Or Being Responsible For Anyone Else.

I Have Been Sitting Around Waiting For An Opportunity To Get To Do Something That Matters For So Long. Not Just That Matters In The World, Which I Think That Season, In Particular, Had A Very Important Meaning For A Lot Of People, But For Me, As An Actress.

I'm Addicted To Routine. I Don't Know If That's Because I Moved Around So Much As Child - By The Time I Was 12 Years Old, I Had Lived In About 10 Different Places. But I Like Going To The Theater At A Certain Time.

I Think Sometimes When You Can Feel The Velocity Of Change, Like Nowadays, You Really Need A Seat Belt. It's Almost Like Having A Growth Spurt That You Can Feel, Like A 16-year-old Who Woke Up One Day And Grew Four Inches Literally Overnight. That Can Be A Painful Thing Sometimes.

If I Had My Druthers, I Would Be Working In All Different Mediums, Forever.

I Work In The '60s More Than I've Done Anything Else. I Did A Movie, Called Down With Love, In The '60s. I Did A Movie For Hbo, About The Johnson Administration In The '60s.

If You Heard Me Sing, You Would Just Plug Your Ears And Run, Screaming, The Other Way. I Promise.

Your Mind Knows Your Pretending, But, In Terms Of The Adrenaline And The Fact That You Are Actually Crying, And That You Are That Upset, And You Are Screaming, And You Are Simulating Terror, Your Body Does Not Know That It Is Not Real. Your Body Feels Really Wrecked Afterwards.

I'm One Of Those Actors Who's Just Standing There, Waiting And Ready For Something To Come My Way. I Don't Really Try To Think About, "oh, I Feel The Next Thing I Should Do Should Be A Feature. Now, I Think I Should Do A Play." I Just Hope Someone Wants To Cast Me In Something.

I Was Constantly, Always And Forever, Trying To Perform The Musical 'annie' For Anyone Who Would Listen, And I Have A Terrible Singing Voice. It Was The First Thing That Made Me Think I Wanted To Be An Actress.

To Not Have Any Hope Is Where Things Start To Get Really Bleak. Things Are Possible. The Impossible Can Be Possible.

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I Played A Lesbian Reporter In 1964, Who Was Incarcerated, And Ended The Series As A 75-year-old Woman. And Then, I Was A Witch Blinded By Acid Who Became The Supreme, And Took My Mother's Energy And Life, So That I Could Live And She Would Die. And Then, I Was Conjoined Twins. And Then, I Played A Heroin Addict.

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All Of My Friends Went To College And I Got A Job At Circle Pizza, Where I Worked For 24 Hours. I Had To Call My Mother Four Times To Ask Her How To Spell Parmesan. I'm Not Kidding. I Was A Terrible Speller. I Think I Was Really Nervous That I Somehow Didn't Feel Right Out In The World In That Way.

I Do Like The Immediacy Of Audience's Reaction. I Like When I Can Hear The Stillness And I Know That They're With Us.

The Idea Of Being On A Show Where Each Season Stands Alone, And You Can Come Back The Next Year And Show An Entirely Different Aspect Of Your Personality Or Your Talent Or Your Anything Is An Enormous Gift That You Rarely Get In Television.

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